


again and again

by jade304



Category: Drag-On Dragoon | Drakengard
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abandonment, Emotional Manipulation, Flashbacks, Gaslighting, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 05:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12810735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jade304/pseuds/jade304
Summary: In her fourteenth year, Caim gives her a way to escape.(Sometime before Drakengard 2.)





	again and again

“You remind me of her when you do that.”

He stops almost instantly at her words spoken aloud; he seems rather startled by them. It’s rare that the girl ever speaks to him beyond the bare minimum to communicate.

He’s been in a bit of a temper tantrum, she has no other words to describe it – him, slamming around their shared, small inn room. The constant stomping about still puts a pit of terror in her, knowing it could be deflected onto her in any instant, but for some reason it only exhausts her today. She doesn’t know his thoughts, not beyond what he tells her, so she has no way of knowing if interrupting it is a bad move. It doesn’t _feel_ like a bad move – she’s gotten better at gauging the levels of his never-completely-absent-anger – but his immediate halt gives her a bit of a pause.

_Of whom?_

Unspoken. It’s not a verbal question, not even a thought, so much as a _push,_ a mental reaction translating itself into words in her mind. She thinks he might be able to speak through his thoughts, but he has never tried. It’s only through the dragon’s link and the remnants of old gods that they’re able to communicate without requiring written word or hand gesticulation on his part.

(Oftentimes, though, the things he commits with his hands speak just fine.)

“She would always shout and go on a fit when something angered her.”

Their mental link is not two ways, but he has a small flash of understanding anyway. She’s certainly been woken up abruptly in the night, with an order of _silence,_ the ghost of the word hanging in the back of her throat like she’d been screaming.

(She usually is screaming.)

“It can’t be anything worth stomping over, is it? You’re stomping. Really and truly stomping around.”

She knows she sounds kind of angry, but she can’t help it. It _is_ infuriating. He’s got nothing more to do than just stomp around the room in the evening and hiss angrily through his nose like an animal. It’s exhausting.

_I don’t need a lecture from you._

She’s upset him, but for once she finds she doesn’t care. Her stomach flips at the thought. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care!

(Blood spatters the ground. The child is crying; she doesn’t know whose child it is. They might have a mother. They might have a brother. Both of them are probably gone by now. He makes sure to explain just _how many children like you_ as he swings.)

(She cares.)

For once, she’s glaring back at him, defiant. They give each other a good staring down for about a solid minute before he hisses again. This time, though, it sounds amused.

_You’re as stubborn as any other teenage girl._

(The notion is a bit melancholy. She wonders if he meant for her to hear it.)

 

 

 

The next morning, he hands her a dagger.

The cold metal in her hands freezes her in place for a second. It’s heavier than she would expect for such a small blade, but feels all the more dangerous for it. In all of the eight years they’ve traveled together, he’s never once given her any sort of weapon.

_You lead today._

It’s a deviation from their normal routine. She never is allowed to leave his side. She is never allowed to wander ahead. She knows the reason behind the change, of course; though she might not have any skills or knowledge with even so simple a weapon, she could still inflict damage.

She can feel his eyes boring into her as she walks, holding the dagger to her chest. She isn’t sure where he wants her to be going, but occasional mental shoves guide her directions. A left. A left. Straight for another few meters. Turn at that tree. Keep going until I tell you to turn.

They’re winding deeper into the tangled wood, farther and farther from their last nights’ stay. He’ll occasionally tell her to stop, turn around carefully, and head back in the opposite direction, making a turn. She can’t tell anything apart, no landmarks, but he must have some idea of where he’s going to be so direct in instruction.

_Wait._

He grabs her by the arm, forcing her to come to a stop. They’re well into the forest now, town well out of their sight. He presses the arm holding the dagger even closer to her chest.

_I’ve given you more than she did._

He turns and walks back to the last point where he told her to turn.

_Wait. I’ll be back._

He keeps walking.

She waits.

She can’t move.

He keeps walking, and finally makes another turn before he vanishes from her line of sight.

She waits.

Distantly, their connection becoming too far to still hear, his faint command whispers:

_Wait._

 

  

It’s warm in the house. She realizes it as she slowly blinks awake. She yawns; the sky hasn’t even begun to lighten. It’s too early for him to be waking her. He promised that he’d only do it after the sun begins to show, so they’d have enough light to wander outside.

She snuggles deeper under the thin blanket, feels the familiar weight of her twin snuggled up beside her. It’s so warm for a change, she isn’t sure why Seere decided to wake her and spoil it.

“Manah, wake up.”

It isn’t Seere that woke her. She rolls over, blanket still bunched around her chin. She didn’t do anything last night; she made her brother triple check. Everything was exactly as it should be. Maybe he didn’t check enough. He often gets tired of triple checking _both_ their chores. Maybe he lied. But she doesn’t look angry, even though it’s much too early in the morning for her to be rousing them.

“Don’t wake Seere, sweetheart,” Her mother says as she rustles around the blankets. Seere snorts loudly in his sleep. “I had a surprise made, just for you.”

“Mother…?”

“Put on your coat and shoes, okay?”

She leans down, smooths back Manah’s hair, kisses her forehead. The spot burns, and the girl leans into her mother’s affection. Wanting. Her hand is gone before she has a moment to absorb it, but the smile is still on her face. Genuine.

She slowly follows her command, buttoning her slightly-too-large coat on over her nightclothes and slipping on her slightly-too-large boots. Her mother is waiting, already dressed at the door, with a small chunk of bread held out to her.

“You can eat while we walk,” She whispers. Seere is still asleep.

They leave the small house, walking through the woods until they reach the snow-covered paths into the mountains.

“I forbid you and Seere from playing here, correct, dear?”

“Yes, mother,” She says. She’s still holding the bread tightly to her chest, as if she needs permission to nibble on it.

Her mother kneels down and brushes dust off her coat, smiles at her. “Today I thought we could take a walk through the mountain path. Just you and me. Bonding time?”

She looks at the bread in her daughter’s hands, shakes her head. “You can eat it, sweetheart. It’s breakfast. We’re going to be walking a while.”

She stands back up, takes Manah by the hand. “Are you up for some walking?”

“Yes, mother.”

 

 

 

She tries to remember the orders he gave her as they walked. Left. Left. Left? No, right. Turn here. Which tree?

The dagger still weighs in her hands. He’s gone out of her sight now, and she has no way of accessing that mental thought link to call out to him.

A wild animal rustles somewhere in the underbrush.

She holds the dagger closer.

_I’ve given you more than she did._

It’s another mind game. He would never dare leave her alone otherwise. She’s tried escaping in the past to disastrous results. She wasn’t even paying attention on the path, focusing only on obeying his commands. She doesn’t even know where she is to begin to run.

The animal is awfully loud as it disturbs the leaves.

It’s a game. It’s a game. It’s a game.

_I’ve given you more than she did._

The dagger is heavier than a slice of bread.

 

  

 

They continue on for some time into the mountain trail, her mother ooing and aahing and pointing out different cuts into the mountainside they should take.

“Are you having fun, sweetheart?”

Manah, despite herself, nods. She finishes off the last of the bread, holds her mother’s hand tighter. The woman smiles at her. It’s warm, so warm that the cold barely touches her. The sky is beginning to lighten, revealing snow undisturbed around them as they form new footsteps.

It’s a game, like the ones mother plays with Seere. The ones she watches from inside, as they sometimes go outside in the snow while she tends to the house. Seere always receives her mother’s smiles, her mother’s affection. Her mother has such a beautiful smile, the one she saves just for Seere, the one she gives her now.

She wonders if they’ll be back before he wakes. She hopes so – she wants to keep this morning safe in her heart, never forgetting it.

(Never forget.)

They come to a stop once the sun begins to wink over the horizon. Her mother comes back to her, placing both hands on her shoulder.

“Do you want to play hide and seek, sweetheart? I know it’s one of you and Seere’s favorite games.”

Manah nods. There’s lots of tall trees around this clearing, good for hiding. Their thick trunks would conceal even her tall mother.

“I’ll go first. Count to twenty, okay?”

She smiles as Manah covers her eyes with her palms. The smile burns itself into her eyelids, its ghost flashing even as her eyes are shut.

“No peeking!”

“Yes, mother!”

She hears the crunch of footsteps as her mother walks off to hide. She counts loudly, making sure that she’d be able to hear from the trees.

“Mother, are you hiding? Ten, eleven, twelve…”

Her mother doesn’t give up her hiding place. She’s very well versed in the rules of the game, knows not to fall for it and call out. Seere usually falls for it.

(It’s a game.)

“Nineteen, twenty! I’m coming, mother!”

She opens her eyes, heading for the trees.

Left tree, left tree, right tree. Her mother is good at hiding.

Back a few paces, back to the right. She’s very good at covering her steps.

Back to the circle of the trees, the center. There’s a single set of prints in the opposite direction of the ones they made, back towards the house.

“You can’t hide at home, mother! That’s cheating!”

She runs down the trail, back in the direction of their home. The wind begins to kick up as the sun rises, blowing snow into her eyes. She blinks and wipes it away with her sleeve. She wishes she would have remembered her gloves.

When she looks around again, she’s on the same trail. But they took two divergences to get here, didn’t they? Those paths that her mother was so excited about. She sees one, runs down it. Her mother is _extremely_ good at this.

When she reaches the end of the small path, she arrives back in the circle of trees.

“Mother?”

The wind whistles around her, rustling the frozen needles of the trees. It sounds like soft bells, the only noise underneath the blowing wind.

“Mother, I give up!”

The tinkling chimes are her only response. The wind blows harder, knocking her off her feet. She topples into the snow and scrapes her chin. Her hands are frozen cold now.

“Mother!”

Something in the trees rustles. An animal, maybe. Something big. She whimpers, still lying on her stomach in the snow.

“Mother, please, come out!”

It rustles again, knocking some snow off the leaves. Snow is seeping into her coat, threadbare and worn. Seere’s got a fresh patching up a few days ago with the snowfall.

“Mama!”

“Mama!”

_“Mama!”_

(You must never forget.)

 

 

  

 “Mama! Mama! Mama, please, stop hiding, I give up, I give up – “

He finds her crumpled in a ball on the forest floor, trembling violently. The dagger, her lone means of survival alone in the forest, has been thrown a ways away from her. She’s curled up in on herself, slowly rocking and shaking with the memory of a frozen winter wind.

“Mama, mama…”

_You cannot run, even when I leave you._

He crouches down at her side, reaches for her shoulder, but she lunges for him first.

Sobbing, she wraps her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in the crook of his neck. She heaves sobs into his shoulder, soaking his traveling cloak.

“Mama…mama, I’m sorry, don’t hide…”

She feels his arms circle around her, holding her shaking form in place. A hand reaches to stroke her hair. She chokes on another sob at the feeling of fingers dragging through her knotted blonde locks. She leans into his touch. She hates it, but it’s so warm. Mama came back and Caim came back and she’s warm again, and she hiccups.

“Mother…”

He maneuvers her a bit so that she can be cradled in his arm; she’s fourteen, and still thin enough that he can still carry her with ease. He lifts her up, walks over to retrieve his weapon.

_All this, and you still cannot run away._

“I didn’t run, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

_You will never run from what you’ve done. Do you understand me?_

“I promise, mama, I’m sorry, I’ll be good…”

_Don't criticize me again._

She begins to cry again, as he puts away the blade and lifts her up into his arms. He doesn’t respond to her lost babbling, now dissolving into only silent cries muffled by his clothing. He carries her out of the woods, back towards the safety of town.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks caim.
> 
> also even more so, thank you thank you @vamprouge over on twitter who drew this AMAZING artwork of manah from the fic!!  
> <https://twitter.com/vamprouge/status/936772382798233600>


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